Fundamentals for Search and Rescue

STUDENT CRITERIA: This course is open to rescue, fire, emergency medical, and law enforcement personnel or any organization having responsibility for searching for missing or lost persons.  Class is limited to the first 50 students.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is designed for new personnel as well as for the experienced SAR personnel. A night search will be conducted with emphasis on the skills and techniques learned during the course.  This course satisfies the basic search and rescue training requirement for local search and rescue coordinators.

This course is designed to provide a minimum level of standardization in training.One should leave this course with a limited skill level of the fundamentals for search and rescue.  The completion of the course in no way guarantees expertise to any degree.  The course, upon completion, is not intended to be a license to perform.  The FUNSAR course makes every effort to use both classroom lecture and field experience as a means to convey information.

The course consists of three basic topics; Search, Rescue and Survival/Support skills.  The search exercise refers to the application of some of the skills learned in the course.

COURSE RECOMMENDED PREREQUISITES: To assure that everyone attending the course enters at similar levels of understanding, all participants are recommended to have had training in first aid and CPR and have some experience with the outdoors.